8 House Members View Draft Bill on Independent Science/Tech Probe of WTC 1, 2, 7 Collapses

(14) That two adjunctive and vital inquiries pertinent to most of the stipulated theories need to be resolved: a) building security; b) suppression of witness statements by authorities.

a) Security on all three buildings would have to have been breached if demolitions were the cause of the collapses. An employee of Fiduciary Trust, original tenants of the South Tower’s 90th, 94th-97th floors,  reported his firm was given three-weeks notice that for the first time in the building’s history the electricity was going to be shut off from the 48th to 110th floor during the long Labor Day weekend of September 7-10, 2001.

Two other tenants told the media that there were several powerdowns as well as evacuations and, in particular, the sight of “ethnically diverse” men in overalls with tools was “unprecedented.”

 As the WTC’s leaseholder, Larry Silverstein explained that the powerdowns were for a cabling upgrade to increase the Center’s computer bandwidth. Several upper-floor tenants did report finding fine dust on furnishings and equipment the following Monday morning, indications of drilling.

Yet for “powder monkeys” (demolition professionals) to prepare upper floors without arousing suspicions would have required tenants’ absence and the cooperation of the WTC’s security vendor as well as Silverstein’s approval.

b) That oral histories about the collapses, taken immediately after September 11, 2001 were sealed, unlike data from other major catastrophies in New York City’s history. Testimony about the events was given by 503 firefighters and medical workers and sealed by the City of New York from early 2002 until 2007 when a Freedom of Information suit filed by The New York Timesand families of 9/11 victims for public access was finally won in the New York Court of Appeals.

The theory in many quarters has been that the city was ordered to conceal what caused the collapses lest the public suspect the federal government was involved, not 19 terrorists with boxcutters. That the charge of “9/11 was an inside job” might appear to have substance and cause a public uproar with calls for accountability.

Other explanations have been that national security was involved. That revelations of what happened might lead other terrorists to repeat such devastation.

SEC. 3. ESTABLISHMENT

There is to be established an independent group   known as the Science and Technological Committee to Investigate the Structural Failures of the New York City World Trade Center’s Twin Towers and Building No. 7 (in this Act referred to as the ‘Committee’).

SEC. 4. MEMBERSHIP

       (a) Members – The Committee shall be composed of the following 25 individuals or their designees:

(1) 1 Member shall be designated chair by the mutual consultation of the Committee chair and ranking member. Credentials shall require nationally recognized expertise either in structural engineering or architecture for steel-framed, high-rise buildings.

Remaining members will be selected by consultations of the House Committee’s chair, and the ranking member, and the Act’s Committee chair, shall include:

 (2) 3 Members from the architects and structural engineers who designed and built the WTC.

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